Cheap Paintings

Where can I get prints made of my paintings? ?

I've painted some pictures for kids' rooms and I would like to get prints of them made onto canvas or a good quality card stock to resale. I printed some at Kinkos, but they don't look good. I want good quality prints at cheap prices andI only want like 5 prints of each of my paintings. Any ideas?

Public Comments

1. You have to take very good high resolution pictures (digital) of the paintings. Then go online. . . there are many places you can get reproductions made: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=giclee+prints&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq= Cheap? I don't know what you want to spend, but good prints are not exactly cheap. (I paid $25 for a 9"x12" of a watercolor, and felt that my Epson could do better!) However, most places that do art reproductions will give you estimates.
2. "Good quality" and "Cheap" is not possible. You'll have to visit a professional Photolab for good prints. They'll need a negative (or slide) of the painting photographed with a colour chart so that they can set a gray balance and set the overall colour balance.
3. I read the helpful answers given before this one. I have to respectfully disgree with one bit of info repeated below: "They'll need a negative (or slide) of the painting photographed with a colour chart so that they can set a gray balance and set the overall colour balance." Actually, if you do go to a good digital printing business, the best and only way to ensure a good reproduction is for the professionals at the printing place to scan your painting. No film, no slides, just a high resolution capture with a scanner or large format camera with a digital scanback. A custom color profile of your painting is created at the time of the capture. This profile is information that ensures the integrity of your images color and is embedded in the digital file of your painting. Professional printers, unlike Kinkos, can keep your colors consistent from print to print this way. The digital file made from your painting is color corrected and adjusted until it is an accurate representation of your painting, and can be printed quite large if you like with no loss of fine detail. Not cheap, but this is how artists create limited editions of their original works. Theoretically, the first reproduction in the edition and the 200th, even if it is printed many years later, will be identical. Having said all of that, I would take a little of everyone's advice and do the following: • Get a professional scan of your painting. This is the part that will cost, but there is no substitute for a good foundation. A bad digital snapshot is a bad idea: "Garbage in, Garbage Out". Your good scan can be used to make greeting cards someday, a photo book, or even put on a billboard should you choose to do so. It will be easily made web ready for your new website- and if the scan was done by knowledgeable people, your painting will always look great wherever it is reproduced. • Find a photo lab on the internet or in your town which is affordable. Upload your digital file to their specs and start ordering great prints There are tons of competent digital printers out there who charge a few bucks and deliver great quality. Stay away from high end wedding photo labs and the like as they are very expensive. Kinkos, Longs, will charge you very little but the prints are usually streaky, and the colors are a gamble. Good luck, and it's not as complicated as I may have made it sound!